


Somehow Crazy For You Lately I Have Been

by brynnmck



Category: David Cook (Musician), Music RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-25
Updated: 2010-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:09:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"And now you—" Andrew goes on, grabbing a half-empty bottle of Heineken to illustrate his point—"are here, and </i>he<i>—" PBR, of course, sliding over next to the Heineken—"is here, and—" He tips the mouths of the bottles toward each other.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Somehow Crazy For You Lately I Have Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dugrival](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dugrival/gifts).



> For dugrival, as an appallingly late birthday present, with much MUCH love. Title cobbled together from MWK's "Room For Two."

If the success of a "Welcome to L.A." party can be measured by either number of people squashed into a three-bedroom house, or quantity of alcohol consumed by said people, then Kira's pretty sure that Andrew's gonna crack at least the top ten. Everywhere she looks, there seem to be bodies—most of which she recognizes, a few who might possibly have just shown up on the promise of free beer—and all the laughter and yelling and too-loud music is actually a hell of a nice change from how empty this place had been while the guys were on tour. She finds the chaos comforting; she's still not quite used to living in a place where she isn't fighting at least five of her family members for bathroom space all the time.

Of course, growing up with that many siblings also taught her a thing or two about the necessity of hiding the things that you didn't want to have disappear unexpectedly. Which is why she's ducking into the near-empty kitchen for the bottle of absinthe she'd stashed earlier, inside the garden gnome that Dave insists on keeping on top of the refrigerator for reasons known only to himself.

She's got to move quickly; it's only a matter of time before someone else wanders in. She's looking around for something to use as a step-stool when the swinging door bangs open behind her. She jumps guiltily—which makes no sense, because she's only stealing her own alcohol, but once she's gotten the _Mission: Impossible_ theme in her head, it's tough to shake—but it's only the guest of honor, looking like he probably wouldn't notice if she stole his eyebrows right off his face.

"Hey," Andrew says, through a wide, goofy smile. Lord knows what's been poured down his throat in the last few hours.

"Hi," she answers, then, snickering as he weaves toward her, "You're so trashed. Loser."

He just beams. "Whaaaaaat? Nooooo." He collapses against her in something between a hug and a simple concession to gravity, and she grins. It feels right to have him here, too; there had been long, lonely months where they'd been the last holdouts, keeping the home fires burning while everybody else chased their dreams and demons to New York, to LA, to anywhere with more people and less wheat. She and Andrew had Skyped themselves hoarse and worn a hell of a groove into Highway 169, and she's not sure she'll ever forget the way he looked on the day she finally left Tulsa, too: his eyes red-rimmed and his mouth crooked to make some stupid joke, waving at her as she looked out the car's back window until he'd blurred into a hot smear of tears. She'd fucking hated leaving him.

Just now, he's slumped against her shoulder and patting her hair in a heartfelt-yet-aimless way that she knows can go on for upward of fifteen minutes if she lets it. So she smacks a hard kiss into the top of his head and then shoves him back.

He rocks a little but stays upright, with an assist from the nearby counter. "So what's…" It comes out sounding a hell of a lot like _whassss_ , and he clears his throat, starts again. "What's," he goes on, like an elocution teacher, "your plan for playing Doctor?" The capital letter is clear, even if his pronunciation isn't.

The tips of Kira's ears go hot. "Plan?"

Andrew's eyes roll back into his head, far enough that they could just about get lost, in his current state. "Dude. It's been… fricking… months. Fricking…" Hands waving wildly in the air. "I don't even know. _Lots_ of months. You frickin' _phone-sexed_ him, dude."

"Shut _up_ ," she hisses, grateful for the noise of the party; she'd sworn him to secrecy on that, on pain of purple nurples. Which she will be delivering later, seeing as he wouldn't even feel it right now. "That was once, and we were drunk." Not so drunk that she doesn't still have vivid sensory recall: the harsh, eager rasp of Neal's voice in her ear; her sheets sliding like cool water against her back; the slick heat of bourbon in her stomach, the cramp in her right hip that she couldn't stand to ease with Neal panting _fuck, yes, please, yes, Kira_ — 

The next day, they'd laughed about it, and she could've sworn she could hear him blushing.

"And now you—" Andrew goes on, oblivious, grabbing a half-empty bottle of Heineken to illustrate his point—"are here, and _he_ —" PBR, of course, sliding over next to the Heineken—"is here, and—" He tips the mouths of the bottles toward each other.

She grabs them both and slams them down out of his reach. "Yes, I get it, thank you." 

Andrew just shakes his head. "Kira von Kira von Kira von Kira. You." He points at her with a wavering finger. "Are a chickenshit."

She snorts. "Blow me, Milhouse. You had to wait till your boyfriend's girlfriend set you up before you'd make a move." That had been quite a night, Jennie literally locking Andrew and Andy in a room together with the command to just fucking make out already, and next time she was taking pictures. Kira's never planning on letting either of the boys live that down.

"Slightly different," Andrew protests, but he's got that dazed, puppydog look on his face, like he just got whacked on the back of the head with the poly stick and it's not even his birthday.

Dork. She can't resist the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair.

Which he repays by grabbing her by the shoulders. "Dude. Sack up. It's game time."

Kira tips her head back to the ceiling and groans. So much for changing the subject. "Would you back off? Jesus Christ, Cook. If I wanted a pimp, I've had way better offers."

"What's your deal?" he presses. "Is it that whole 'afraid to take the friendship to the next level' Ron/Hermione thing? Because I'm pretty sure that ship sailed right around the time of the _phone sex_ —"

That’s it; she reaches for the nearest nipple and pinches, hard. He howls.

"Ow! Asshole!" But he's laughing. Wincing, too, with one arm folded defensively over his chest. But also laughing.

"Bitch," she counters smoothly. "Do you want some ice for that?"

"If I did, you could probably get me some FROM YOUR HEART," he complains, slumping onto one of the stools next to the counter.

"Awww." She takes the stool next to him and hooks one arm around his neck. "I warned you, baby."

"Asshole," he mutters again, but he nuzzles his forehead into her neck with a contented sigh.

The music changes outside, ETID shaking the foundations of the house. Their neighbors are gonna love living next door to musicians, now that the guys are actually around for more than a few days at a time. The kitchen is littered with empty cans and half-empty pizza boxes, hieroglyphics for good times. And Andrew still smells like the same shampoo his mom bought him when he first went off to college.

"It's just," she says, under the protection of the thudding bassline. "It's not like I'm worried about fucking it up, or anything like that." She and Neal have had their share of epic battles over the years, from screaming to silence to tears; if they were going to fuck it up, they'd have done it already. "It's just that the timing has never been right, and now it is, and… this is it, you know? I really think this is it for me. And I just want… I want it to start off right. I want it to be perfect."

Andrew doesn't say anything for a long minute. Then he sighs again. "Love you, K." He drags his head up to plant a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "You're gonna be so stupid happy."

God _damn_ , she's missed him. "Love you, too."

"'Course," he goes on, "you're still an asshole, so I also hope you—"

"Hey!" Andy bursts through the door, hair tousled and eyes glowing with mischief and a hell of a lot of alcohol. Jennie and Carly trail in behind him like a combination honor guard and let's-keep-our-drunk-friend-from-doing-anything-stupid guard. He zeroes in on Andrew immediately. "There you are." He's already got one hand tangled in the collar of Andrew's shirt by the time he clicks into the mood of the room. He cocks his head at Kira. "Hey. You okay?"

"All good," she answers, grinning so he knows she means it.

"Awesome," he says sunnily, and proceeds to drag Andrew out of his chair, shove him up against the refrigerator, and kiss him like he's bucking for the Tonsil Hockey Stanley Cup. Jennie settles one hip against the counter and drinks in the scene with a smile.

Carly rolls her eyes. "Oh, Lord. Why do I sense that it's about to get X-rated in here? Again?"

"Dinner and a show," Kira chirps. But she's usually not the type to watch, especially with a guy who's basically her brother, so she bids a mental farewell to her hidden bottle of absinthe and links an arm through Carly's. "I'll save you. Though I don't know who's gonna save Man-drew, over there," she adds, louder, and Andrew makes some kind of unintelligible sound to indicate that he really, really doesn't want to be saved. Jennie laughs low. Kira gets the hell out of there before Andy's hand makes it any further down Andrew's body. 

The other side of the door is all body heat and noise, and Kira loses Carly almost immediately, with just time to hear a cheerful, "My hero," in her ear before the other woman gets swallowed up by the crowd. Kira takes a moment to scrawl a sign on the back of a packing slip for Neal's newest guitar— _Threesome in Progress, Enter At Your Own Risk_ —and slap it on the kitchen door. The press of bodies and the steadying thump of the music is tempting, promising abandon, but she skirts the edge of the room and slips up the staircase instead. One thing she's learned in L.A. is that sometimes just being near a crowd is enough; she doesn't always have to be in the middle of it.

The lights are off in Neal's room. She lets herself stop in the doorway, long enough for random spikes of shadow to resolve themselves into the necks of guitars, long enough for the tradition of a shiver at the way Jack Nicholson's manic smile glints at her from the poster on the far wall. In her own apartment, she's still got packed boxes from her move, shoved against walls and in closets and one underneath her sink that she bumps her knee on about twice a month. Neal's boxes had met their recycling fate within a week of the last show, leaving only neat rows of books and notebooks and CDs and DVDs in their wake. _Weirdo_ , she thinks, with a rush of affection that rolls over her like a familiar song. 

Which gives way to the equivalent of the needle-scratch squeak on a comedy soundtrack when she feels the telltale slide of lacquer under her fingers and realizes she's been standing there fondling Neal's cheap-ass doorframe for who knows how long.

Which gives way to the fervent wish that Nicholson's crazy grin will swallow her when she hears Neal's amused, "Hey," behind her and realizes he's been _watching_ her fondling his cheap-ass doorframe for who knows how long.

She whips around and blurts, "Hey." Too loud, dammit, but he's just smiling, his typical sprawled-out Neal smile like he hasn't even noticed her sudden faux wood fetish.

"Can't cross the threshold?" he asks, coming to lean on the opposite side of the doorframe. His shirt gapes open past his sternum, exposing bright new ink. "I hate that." Up close, the smile is more dangerous; the temptation to just dive in and _take_ has her fingers itching.

She punches him on the shoulder. "Like you could stop me."

He laughs. "Like I would want to." A year ago he could have said it and the conversation would have just gone on with only a momentary buzz along the back of her neck, or a quick, unconscious swipe of Neal's tongue across his lower lip. This time the silence hangs, and Neal clears his throat, eyes skipping to the side, and shoves the drink in his hand toward her. "Here. Dave really wanted you to have this for some reason."

"Well, _that's_ a ringing endorsement." She peers into the red Solo cup—her boys may be semi-famous, but they still like the classics—and sniffs the contents suspiciously. It's only about half full, and it smells like bourbon and ginger, which is about Dave's usual speed, since in all his time as a bartender he never did seem to get the hang of drinks with more than two ingredients. On the other hand, she's still not sure he's got all the tour bus pranks out of his system, and she'd really hate to have to hold his new guitar hostage until he weeps for mercy; she's got an early call the next day.

"I saw him make it, it's fine, I swear," Neal assures her. She narrows her eyes at him, but he's never pranked her, not once, not even when he got caught as collateral damage in an epic war between her and Andrew a few years back. Not to mention that Neal's about as good at hiding any guilt as Sixx is, and he looks faintly suspicious of Dave's motives, too, but nothing more than that. She lifts a shoulder. 

_Fortune favors the bold_ , she reminds herself, and tips her head back and chugs.

What's weird is that Neal is the one who chokes.

"What?" she demands, coughing. And, it must be said, drooling a little as she does her best to spit back what she can. "Did he fucking—"

"No, it's fine, it's—"

"Tiemann. Do not make me—" and then she sees it. A tiny corner of paper sticking out from under the bottom of the cup. She scratches at it, feeling tape give underneath her claws. "That little bitch, I swear to god I'm gonna... oh."

The square of paper reads, in Dave's unnaturally neat graphic-designer printing: 

_Dr.,_

_Make a damn move already, or you're fired._

_Kisses,_

_David_

Well. _Fortune favors the bold_ , definitely, and now she has a corollary: _fortune punishes the chickenshit by inspiring David Cook to get involved in their love life_.

"Mother _fuck_ ," she says feelingly, and Neal cracks up, helpless, his cheeks bright red underneath his bright blue eyes. Kira's own face feels so hot that it's hovering right on the edge of pain. She's been alone with Neal dozens of times since they got back—at his place, at her place, in his car, in Andy's car, in the backs of clubs after shows—and this is unquestionably, uncontestedly the least perfect moment of them all. But at least if _she's_ the one who makes the move, they won't have to say they hooked up because David fucking Cook told them to. So she slides her hand into the hair at the back of Neal's head and pulls his laughing mouth to hers.

He stops laughing instantly; stops breathing, she thinks, though she can feel his heart thundering where his chest is pressed against hers. He stays still for long enough that she has a second of sucker-punch fear that somehow she and Andrew and Dave and Andy and Monty and Kyle and Joey and Jennie and Carly and Katie and pretty much everyone who's ever met her and Neal have all been wrong, that he's not interested after all, that he's—

And then his hands come up, fingers curling possessively into the hair at either side of her face, and he tugs her closer and kisses her like he's been waiting lifetimes to do it.

Kira's not sure how long the kiss goes on; it feels a little bit like doing a photo shoot at midnight in an Oklahoma summer, all lightning-sharp flares of sensation—the metallic tang of Neal's lip rings against her tongue, the involuntary jerk of his hips against hers, the nip of his teeth against her top lip—with hot, melting darkness in between. By the time she can put two brain cells together again, her hoodie is unzipped and Neal's hair is a spiky mess and he's got her pressed against the wall of his room, his hands splayed over her hips to keep her in place while he explores.

"Fucking Cook," he murmurs indistinctly, tonguing the spot just underneath her earlobe. "I had _plans_ , y'know."

Plans. Of course he had plans. She smiles and lets her head loll to the side, drawing him a map with the curve of her neck. "Plans like what?"

His huffed-out laugh tickles her collarbone; he kisses up in a diagonal line, tracing what she's pretty sure is the leg of her pinup girl tattoo. "Plans to be sober, for one thing."

She snorts.

"Sober _er_ ," he amends, his voice equal parts grin and gravel, then, as one hand slides up to cup her breast, "God, you're so beautiful." 

It catches her off-guard, and she arches her back, pressing into his palm. "Jesus. Neal." Her head thuds back against the wall; the fingers of her right hand twist tighter in his belt loop. The smooth globe of the overhead light looks like a comic-book moon through the curtain of her eyelashes.

Downstairs, a voice rises above the momentary lull between songs: "Where the fuck is Tiemann? ... Neal? Honey?"

It's got to be Joey, who has apparently shown up with his customary tact and timeliness, and it's enough to set them both snickering. More important to Kira at the moment is that Neal's hands go still against her, though he can't quite seem to break the contact entirely. "Maybe we should get back down there before someone comes looking for us," he offers, sounding almost contrite. 

She pauses, then, "Hmm. You're probably right." Raising one hand to her hair as if in thought, she arches forward again, rubbing her stiffened nipple along the washboard of his fingers. Get back down there, her _ass_.

She can see his Adam's apple bob as he swallows hard. "This isn't exactly the most romantic atmosphere," he tries. "You deserve—"

"Aww." Neal's surprising, unwavering sense of chivalry is one of the things she's always loved about him. Too bad it doesn't stand a chance against her sense of how there's no way in hell he's going anywhere. "I do," she agrees, twining one leg around his, giving herself a mental high-five for choosing a cotton skirt over latex tonight. "I really do." She undulates just the slightest bit, a little bump and grind against his thigh.

He grunts and his eyelids flutter shut for a helpless second. "We could at least close the door," he suggests thickly. But one side of his mouth is quirked up, and the hunger in his eyes is a wicked white flag if she's ever seen one.

"Sure thing, sugar," she purrs, smug, and when she tips her head up to kiss him, he meets her halfway, sealing his mouth to hers like a promise.

After that, there's no turning back. He's hard and hot against her pelvis as he rocks into her; his hands on her are the perfect marriage of reverent and profane. "Fuck, Kira, I want to—I need to—" 

"Yeah," she breathes; it doesn't matter how his sentence ends.

He hitches her knee up higher, over his hip, and holds it there while he hooks his free hand underneath the bottom hem of her skirt and pulls up. "Yes," she gasps. One of them is shaking, though she can't tell who; maybe it's both of them, just one more ridiculous thing they have in common. 

"I thought about this," he tells her. His fingers are on her bare skin now, tracing a deliberate, inexorable path from her hip to her inner thigh. She can't breathe. "Ever since that night, on the phone, I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. About touching you. About hearing you." His voice goes dark and wry. "Pretty sure I set a record for jerking off on the bus, which on that bus is saying something."

She shudders a laugh, and he times it perfectly, slips his fingers under her panties at just the right instant to drop her laugh off the cliff into a moan. "Fuck. _Neal._ "

"Yeah," he whispers raggedly. "That's what I want. That's what I wanna hear. Come on, darlin'." All those nights watching him play, imagining him driving a rhythm out of her body like he does with his guitar, and she was so fucking right—he's a quick study, hardly missing a note, taking his cues from her hitching breath and improvising in ways that leave her biting her lip to muffle her own desperate sounds. Her hand fists against the wall, scraping up paint underneath her claws; she's bowed into him, taut and vibrating like the plucked strings she's always been a little jealous of. 

"Feel so goddamn good," Neal is rumbling in her ear, "so hot, so wet, so fucking good, I need—"

She remembers reading somewhere once that, zero to sixty, it takes the average person seven minutes to reach orgasm. Given that she and Neal have had what feels like approximately seven hundred years of slow, simmering acceleration, it's not surprising that all he has to do is command, "Now, sweetheart, come for me, please," and she's already there, contracting hard around his fingers while her entire body goes bright and brilliant with release.

Record time. Or not. Depending on when you started counting.

She collapses back against the wall, panting, and he lets go of her knee and guides her leg gently back down until her foot is touching the ground again. It's really cute that he thinks that's going to help at all, what with how she's pretty sure everything below her waist has turned to jelly. Delicious, aftershock-ridden jelly, but jelly nonetheless.

Neal smoothes her skirt down over her hips, then brings his mouth to hers for a kiss that's as sweet and easy as it is thorough. When he pulls back, the look in his eyes is enough to jellify everything in her that wasn't jellified already.

"I love you," he says. His eyes flicker down to the floor, then back up. "You know that, right? For years."

She opens her mouth for the obvious response, _no shit, dumbass_ , only her throat clogs and her eyes burn because she knew, yeah, but she didn't _know_. And suddenly she can't say anything at all, just hooks both arms tight around the back of his neck, presses her face to his shoulder and breathes in flannel and whiskey.

His arms come around her, too, squeezing her even closer, molding her body to his. She feels his chest rise and fall on a long, slightly shaky sigh. When they finally break apart, there's a few seconds of awkward silence while she tries to blink back tears and he opens and closes his mouth a few times, searching for words, and then they meet each other's eyes and they both crack up. She slumps forward against his chest; he sinks a hand into her hair, kisses the top of her head.

"Well," he says eventually, muffled in her hair. "Now we probably should get back downstairs."

She barks out an incredulous laugh. "What is _wrong_ with you?" she demands. "I've waited a hell of a long time for this, I'm sure as shit not done with you yet." To prove her point, she fists her hands in his shirt, yanks him in and kisses him fiercely. He melts against her and gives back just as good as he's getting—which is pretty damn good, if she says so herself—but when she starts to slide one hand down between his legs, he grabs both her wrists and pins them to the wall at her sides.

"Woman," he grits out, eyes glinting with lust and amusement and stubbornness, all at once. "Did I not tell you I have plans for this?"

"Did I not tell you I don't give a shit?" she answers sweetly. She writhes against the wall, or at least as much as she can with his weight holding her in place. He's solid and strong, which isn't news, but this is a whole new perspective on it; a shiver of delight crawls up her spine. "C'mon, baby, I promise I'll be gentle with you."

He raises an eyebrow. "You'd better not," he says, but then, before she can follow up on that, "But as you might recall, our friends are fucking obnoxious. And if we get interrupted by fucking Peek pounding on the door and demanding video, we're gonna be up half the night cleaning his blood out of the carpet, not to mention that it's gonna be a pain in the ass to find another drummer before we have to get back in the studio."

In theory, the mental picture is actually pretty amusing, like _Spinal Tap_ as directed by John Carpenter. But goddamn it, Neal's right. A door—even a locked one— is absolutely no guarantee of privacy when they've got a house full of the drunken bastards they call their social circle. And as much as she loves them all, she's really not in the mood to share. "Okay, fine," she sighs. She looks up at him through her eyelashes, pouting elaborately. "But you owe me."

"Oh, hell yeah," he says, low and filthy, and leans forward to kiss her again like she's got him caught in a tractor beam. If that's the case, it's working both ways: she can't resist biting his lip, licking the groan out of his mouth. He shoves back from the wall and levels a warning finger at her.

"Okay. You. Go."

She smirks and looks pointedly at his crotch, which seems to be looking pretty pointedly right back at her. "And what are you going do about that?"

"I'm gonna think about Celine Dion's cover of 'You Shook Me All Night Long,'" he growls. "Now begone, temptress."

Cackling, she takes pity on him, takes his face between her hands to give him one last smacking kiss on the mouth before she ducks out into the hallway. She hears a thud behind her that she sincerely hopes is Neal collapsing against something supportive. It's enough to send her damn near skipping down the stairs.

Stepping back into the light and noise feels like stepping into another world, where everything and nothing is the same as she's always known it. From her vantage, it's easy to pick out Dave huddled up in a corner with Ben Moody. He's gesturing enthusiastically, half air guitarist and half debate geek, but she's not five steps down the stairs before his head comes up and he hones in on her like a hunting dog.

The instant he sees her, his arms shoot up on either side of his head. "Yes!" she can see him yelling, "Touchdown!" while Ben looks on, bemused, in that way that people tend to look at Dave when he's being a freak. So, pretty often.

She attempts a narrow-eyed glare. "I. Will. Kick. Your. Ass," she mouths at him, making a vee with her index and middle fingers and pointing first at her own eyes, then toward him, like every badass drill sergeant in the history of film.

He laughs and extends one hand, palm-up, curves his fingers toward himself in Neo-esque invitation. "Bring it, baby," he mouths back.

She flips him off, but she's smiling. She's not sure she's ever going to be able to _stop_ smiling. Kira Von Sutra, the Smiling Seductress: that may have to be her new schtick. Dave's answering smile is wide and genuinely thrilled; he blows her a kiss. She sticks her tongue out at him and, fine, _does_ skip the rest of the way down the stairs. All of a sudden she's ravenous.

A few songs on the stereo later—after she's managed to hoard away a plate of the snickerdoodles Neal loves, and barely been spared a free show by virtue of her own sign on the kitchen door—she feels hands settle on her hips from behind, hears a voice in her ear. "Monty low-fived me as soon as I hit the living room," Neal informs her ruefully. "I think the jig is up."

She shrugs. Nope, the smile's still not budging. "Hey, our friends _are_ fucking obnoxious." She feels the vibration of Neal's laugh more than hears it as he pulls her back against him and kisses her neck. Her overworked pulse spikes again. "And now you're not even trying."

"Dammit," Neal groans, as his fingers tighten convulsively on her hips. "I just…." He takes a deep breath. _"She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean..."_

Between the slightly strained humor in his voice and the fact that he's singing directly in her ear, it's simultaneously hot and hilarious, and she doubles over giggling before he gets through the first verse.

"Hey! Not helping!" Neal protests, possibly because the movement brings her ass in contact with his groin. Oops.

"Get a room!" Carly calls from where she's cleared an impromptu dance floor in the middle of the carpet.

Kira gets the distinct impression that her middle finger is going to be getting quite a workout for a while.

"Then come dance, you slut!" That would be Katie, beckoning from Carly's far side.

Neal propels Kira forward with both hands at her hips. "Yeah, good idea, go dance. I'm gonna..." He hesitates, then decides, "I'm gonna go set off the smoke alarm and tell everyone to get the fuck out or they'll die."

Kira throws back her head and laughs. "Sweet." She keeps the fingers of one hand tangled with Neal's as long as possible, but reaches out with her other hand and lets Katie draw her out to the middle of the room, already feeling the bassline sink into her bones.

A few seconds later, Andrew bursts out of the kitchen looking disheveled and, well. Yeah. _Disheveled._ Also still wasted, clearly, as he stumbles through the crowd and hurls himself into her arms.

"You totally hit that!" he hollers in her ear. "This is the proudest moment of my life!"

"That's really pathetic!" she shouts back, and he gives her a Heimlich-strength squeeze, then settles into some sort of spastic, vaguely rhythmic flailing that could only by very generous definition be called dancing. Carly whoops encouragement, and Katie takes the opportunity to shimmy down Kira's side, then back up, like Kira's her own personal stripper pole. In Andrew's wake, Andy and Jennie make their way over to join Dave and Ben, Andy's arm curled comfortably around Jen's waist. And when Kira looks back across the room, Neal is watching her, hands in his pockets, the look in his eyes oddly peaceful, and the stupidest grin on his face she thinks she's ever seen.

"I love you!" she bursts out, before she has time to think about it. He blushes and ducks his head; half a dozen people in the vicinity start applauding. But apparently being so fucking happy that it hurts is perfect inoculation against embarrassment, so Kira just twirls gleefully on the spot, surrounded by noise and by people she loves, with a stupid grin to match Neal's stretching across her face.

Damn, it's good to be home.


End file.
